No manager can be expected to win a trophy every season. Nor should it have been a given that Pep Guardiola would win one in his first year in England.

Nevertheless, these are uncharted waters for the Manchester City manager and the enormous significance of his next fixture cannot now be over-stated.

Manchester United are next up for Guardiola on Thursday. When his team won at Old Trafford in September, everything looked rather simpler than it does now. That was the sixth victory of a 10-game winning sequence with which Guardiola introduced himself to English football.

Sergio Aguero's sublime finish on the hour mark gave City the lead but that's as good as it got

Back then, some said Guardiola was about to teach the game in this country a few things. He would educate us, they said. As it turns out, it has been Guardiola learning the lessons and all he can hope now is that his players can absorb the impact of another punishing afternoon in time for their engagement with Jose Mourinho's team at the Etihad.

United are the polar opposite of their neighbours at the moment. They have had their own problems but currently Mourinho is getting the best from what he has. Guardiola cannot lay claim to the same.

City are inconsistent and unpredictable and, at this late stage of the season, that is the worst combination for a manager who will end the campaign without silverware for the first time in his coaching career.

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This is one of the reasons he came to England. He knew it would be harder to win here. At times, though, it has all seemed to represent a much bigger puzzle that anyone thought.

When City are running hot, they can gallop away from teams. But too often they have been stymied when teams try to frustrate them. That is what happened on Sunday and it has also happened often enough in the Premier League for City to be in very real danger of missing out on a top-four place.

That, rather than what happened at Wembley on Sunday, would be truly catastrophic. Failure to qualify for the Champions League — a competition we once suspected he would own — would do much more damage to brand Guardiola than a defeat in the semi-final of the FA Cup.

Nacho Monreal scored his first goal in over two years to draw the Gunners level

Alexis Sanchez celebrates after the Arsenal star scrambled in the winner during extra-time

Against a surprisingly dogged Arsenal, we saw City's familiar failings. They led through an exquisite goal and also struck post and bar. In the first half of normal time, with the game goalless and ordinary, they had a good goal disallowed.

They had more possession and territory in the game but they were not clinical and seemed to suffer physically as the game wore on.

Extra-time at Wembley will drain the juice from many players' legs but on this occasion, it was City who failed to last the distance.

Before the game, the City midfielder Fernandinho had admitted his team struggled when opponents suffocated them defensively through weight of numbers. Though we did not expect it, that was what happened here.

It goes against everything Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger knows not to send out his team to go toe-to-toe with the opposition. He has been doing it for 20 years, with varying degrees of success. But after his team's recent troubles, Wenger showed some intelligence. Maybe a little humility, too.

Raheem Sterling (left) replaced David Silva after 23 minutes but struggled to make an impact

Here was the back three he introduced against Middlesbrough last Monday and here was a game plan designed to draw City's sting.

Ultimately, it worked. It may have been different had City not seen a first-half 'goal' disallowed by an assistant who felt a cross from Leroy Sane had drifted out of play before curving back on to the pitch. It may have been different had David Silva not left the field injured midway through the opening period.

For a time, Arsenal were chasing the game and if they were never exactly hanging on, it was City who looked the more likely winners. Arsenal were better early in the second period but once Sergio Aguero ran on to Yaya Toure's lovely pass to give his team the lead, there would not have been many people betting against City reaching the final.

But this is Guardiola's City. This is not a team that plays with authority or keeps the ball well.

City substitute Fabian Delph slumps on the Wembley turf after his side's semi-final defeat

For all the investment in new talent, City relied on a familiar spine on Sunday, one that ran through his captain, Vincent Kompany, and on via Toure, Silva and Aguero.

One by one, these men succumbed to injury or fatigue and their replacements — Raheem Sterling, Fabian Delph and Kelechi Iheanacho — proved inadequate.

Guardiola has spoken of educating his players and it remains a work in progress. Nothing comes instinctively and Guardiola's frantic delivery of instructions at the interval in extra-time seemed to underline this.

Thursday's meeting with United in east Manchester already has a definitive feel about it.